What's your mission?

A friend alerted me to changes that have been made recently to the mission statement of Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, CA. Claremont is a seminary of the United Methodist Church, which means that it is one of the 13 official UM seminaries responsible for training UM clergy.

So imagine my surprise when I read the mission statement and saw that there is no reference to God, Jesus Christ, or the United Methodist Church itself:

"An ecumenical and interfaith institution, Claremont School of Theology seeks to instill students with the ethical integrity, religious intelligence, and intercultural understanding necessary to become effective in thought and action as spiritual leaders in the increasingly diverse, multi-faith world of the 21st century."

The context of the new mission statement is given in a bit more detail in this news release by the seminary and this blog post by seminary president Dr. Jerry Campbell.

Now maybe I'm overreacting. But it seems to me that a United Methodist seminary ought to at least be able to identify itself as rooted in the monotheistic tradition (let alone the Christian faith itself). I asked a couple of friends about this, both of whom have lived on the West Coast. They said that the cultural context of Southern California, as perhaps the most religiously diverse area in the country, means that the context for thinking about the mission of a seminary is very different than in other places. They said something else that was striking to me as well: That oftentimes the church's mission out there is largely understood as learning how to speak peacefully to other religions.

My question: How can you talk to other religions if you don't know who you are?